December 23, 2009, 5:26 pm
Over the last week people started moving out of Totem Park Residence enough to make it noticably quieter. Last Thursday and Friday nights were lively and some crazy people took an exam the morning after drinking, then briefly came back before leaving for the airport. After the weekend my floor still made a bit of noise but our days consisted of sitting around maybe playing on Khasan’s xbox or cycling around the hallway.
Then it came to Tuesday, the last night, with only me, Henry, Khasan, Alex (who had made a surprise return), Bob, Jin, and perhaps three of the very quiet people. On Wednesday the canteen had less than a third of it’s cereal selection, I went for Cornflake crumbs. The grill was closed and being super-cleaned (so no fry up to end the semster), even the wrap/sandwich station and salad bars were empty. It came to just me and Jin on the floor and at exactly midday we decided to leave rather than wait to be removed.
I’m now across the road at Pierre’s place in Thunderbird Residence. I’m sharing the internet with him and sleeping here for two nights, until early Christmas Day we set off with Felicia on a road trip. First stop is Calgary, then Banff (for my birthday), then Jasper, and back to Vancouver. I met them both in the week before term started as they are also exchange students, and we meet up now and then to do things like eat French snails. It should be a long exciting trip, hopefully I won’t come back as an ice cube. I might try to make quick blog posts at some places, but otherwise assume I’m not going to be online much, the first Christmas that’s happened!
December 7, 2009, 2:26 am
I had Thursday free and amazingly the rain had run out, so despite it being cold I took my bicycle on the bus to Stanley Park. This was my first trip to Stanley Park so I kept snapping away with my camera. At first I had forgotten it was the middle of a winter weekday but that explains why it was so quiet and peaceful.
October 26, 2009, 3:57 pm
Long before I got to Canada I knew I would want to get a cheap bicycle while I’m here. I’ve been looking on Craig’s List, which is very popular here, but it’s been ttaking a while. You have to search the bicycle board for something resonable annd cheap, look at the photo as this may be all you have, and then contact the seller. You then might never work out a time to meet them, discover the bicycle isn’t suitable (one was far to small for me), or it’s really far away and the seller’s car is at the garage. So you repeat the process from searching the lists again. This gets disheartening, especially when you got your hopes up about a 70s Raleigh bicycle made in Nottingham, UK.
I went along to the student run Bike Kitchen but they had less than 10 bikes for sale, all priced $300 or more. It got to Friday last week and I really wanted to buy a bicycle. I didn’t know what shop to go to but I had seen loads along Broadway on the 99 bus route. My Friday should have finished at 1pm, but I was interviewing students for research until 4pm. Despite the shops probably closing soon I headed for the bus at 4:30pm to at least confirm where the shops were.
First stop was West Point Cycles who were extremley helpful in the 2 minutes I was there. I would highly recommend them even though I didn’t buy a bike there. Apart from new bicycles.accessories they only sell ex-rental which start at $250. They suggested Cheapskates, apparently Vancouver’s best used bike shop, but confirmed with collegues that it had closed down a week ago. The only other option they gave was Craigslist and a shop named Ride It, which everyone knows by the massive “Cheap Student Bikes” sign above the store front. I got on a slow bus to go the 10 blocks to Vine Street. On the bus I met Andy, one of my floor mates, who had also been searching around for a bicycle and was heading to Cheap Student Bikes. This shop, now Vancouver’s only second hand bicycle store, also had friendly and helpful staff. They have a full range of bicycles new and old, from less than $80 to $400 and probably beyond. I left with a nice black Rocky Mountain (Canadian brand) bike for under $200, and Andy and his friends bought a small well made folding bike for someone’s birthday present. The shop gave each of our bikes a 10min check after we bought them, and then it was so dark outside I took my bike back on the bus. On Saturday I went for a cycle and on Sunday, after some annoying fire alarms, finally got to cycle to church. Check the photos for more details.
